Here's the scoop...

Ok, so I knew no one would really get it, but I wanted to see if you would comment and what you would come up with. Those with dairy guesses were the closest. It was yogurt. YUM! But not just any yogurt, folks, this was Peruvian yogurt. The water ran off once the bottle was broken, leaving the solid clump in there. That package was a MESS inside. I'm not sure if the receiver was more embarrassed or disappointed. She evidently loves herself some Peruvian yogurt. Case closed.

We will be off line for the weekend. One of our assignments is to spend a weekend without electricity and cooking from scratch. This is the weekend. The only exception to the electricity is that we can use the stovetop - propane stovetop would likely be available even if we were without electricity. They aren't into us cooking over an open flame here. Shucks...I was feeling up to it. So, when you enjoy your pre-packaged meal, your TV and microwave popcorn, your hair dryer, lunch at Chick-Fil-A, your Diet Coke (Teri Gray), an ice cream and a warm shower, think of us. Eat your heart out, we're filling up on fruits and veggies and going to bed shortly after sundown. Hope you enjoy it - we plan to.

Keep the comments coming - they are very encouraging.

CSI - IMB Style

Ok, so it was all very dramatic. I received a call to go the the Admin building today. Everyone who got a package had to come down. There was an off-white liquid on the packages and they needed to be identified.

I have to admit that as I walked I was praying that my mother didn't put something in a package that would end up embarrassing me. I was also hoping I didn't have something REALLY great that I would have to share if opened in front of a bunch of people. Sorry folks, just keepin' it real.

I arrived and safely identified my package. Mom didn't embarrass me. In fact, she hadn't even sent me a package. Our package was just a bunch of left-behind stuff from our three week stay at the Williams bed and breakfast. Thanks, Lori - we got it. The boys will be very excited to be able to charge their Nintendo DSes again.

HOWEVER, I could not take possession of my package until we knew it was safe to do so - that meant the liquid had to be identified, which could not happen until all other packages were identified and then we started opening.

The mystery WAS solved, and it was not our package. Any guesses? Here is the only information we had. It was an off-white (almost ivory) liquid, very runny (almost the consistency of water), pretty much odorless.

To guess, LEAVE A COMMENT. We get a report that shows lots of people visiting the blog, though you can't tell by the comments. Go ahead - leave a comment to make a guess. It's not tough. Feel free to leave it anonymously (you can even identify yourself in the text of the comment if you would like to).

Talk to you after we get a few decent guesses. For now, we have to finish cleaning up the scene...
ron

What's been going on...

Hey there - greetings from Rockville, VA

Life here is settling into a routine. We are enjoying our time here immensely. Communal living is great, but has some drawbacks - strep, stomach flu, etc. We haven't gotten those, but it continues to spread. Pray for protection around quad 9. When you spend so much time together you're bound to share!

We have been learning so much about the Lord. We have sessions all day, about all types of things. But the main thing they continue to stress is not to miss the main thing - which is abiding in the Savior. We have not had this much growth in such a long time. The kids are having a great time - we hardly ever see Zach. All of the kids in his group, spend almost every waking moment together. Yesterday we had a good day celebrating Ron's birthday. We have the first round of immunizations on Friday, our appt is at 1:40 - pray that the kids do well. Not sure of how many we will have until then. Still haven't learned much French, but still have it on the agenda.

Thought for the day: quote by Dr. Rankin (he said he heard it from a pastor) - "Unforgiveness is like you drinking poison and expecting the other person to die"

Love to you all!

Hi Mom! I love you!

2008 is a Banner Year! My parents' house has never had a working computer (unless you include a Commodore 64 during my middle/high school years). Since we are moving to Africa, they have finally powered up. Now they have gone from no computer to high-speed internet. My mom even learned how to comment on our blog without any tutoring! Wow - great job, Mom! Here is a picture of Mom along with her sister, my Aunt Sara. (Mom is on the left).

Mom has email now, and knows how to check it. If you know her - or even if you don't, feel free to drop her a line at smillender0125@gmail.com.

Hi Dad! I love you too!

ron

Update

Hey all,

I wanted to update you on my asthma. It is an allergy induced flare-up. The doctor put me on an oral steroid after giving me a breathing treatment. She also put me on a allergy medicine. I feel much better. Thank you for praying.

Address

I posted our address in a previous post, but they want us to include our unit # on any letter. So in case you wanted to mail us or the kids a letter our unit number is 9B. So it would be:

Ron Millender 9B
ILC
16492 MLC Lane
Rockville, VA 23146

Have a great day.

1 week down 7 more to go

Well - week 1 is over. It has been an amazing time - not without some transition, but God is faithful. I will try to touch on some of the highlights so far. Friday we had a personal retreat - it was 2 hours of uninterrupted time alone with the Lord. I had never really done that before - I wasn't quite sure of what to do with that much time, but one thing for sure was that God showed up! Both Ron and I had an amazing time just sitting at His feet. God really showed me how spiritually dry I was. One of our assignments is to pick 6 verses of scripture to memorize while we are here and during our retreat time - God led Ron and I to pick the same passage of scripture. We are going to memorize John 15:1-11 for me and Ron is going to 17. One of the teachers really focused in on abiding in Him and then the truth of "apart from Him we can do nothing". That is our prayer - that we try to do nothing apart from the Lord.

For the past 2 days Dr. Rankin has spoken and it has been amazing. He has so challenged us in many ways - working through Romans and 1 Peter. God is challenging us to grow in so many ways. Before coming here our thought was that this training was about being a better missionary, but really it is about our connecting with our Savior in an intimate way - go figure!

Some ways to pray - my (Chris) asthma is really flaring up here and our allergies are crazy.

We miss you tons!

Life here at the Farm

Here is the van with all of our stuff:Here is a picture of our Quad. Each building is broken down into apartments.

Our apartment has 3 bedrooms, 1 bath and a kitchenette.

This is a picture of the boys room.

All of the bedrooms look the same - except we have pushed our twins together!

Our daily routine is such that we wake up and walk and then we have breakfast in the cafeteria. We will soon start having small group church with a few families that are going to West Africa. We then take the kids to their school. We then have meetings and will be trained in all sorts of things - it will be like drinking from a fire hydrant for 8 weeks. We have to read soooo much stuff. The training is very thorough. After our training we have dinner in the cafeteria. For the most part our evenings are "free". But with that you have to play with your kids, read many books and if you haven't exercised - fit that in as well. This will be a time of tremendous growth!

We know that the Lord will stretch us in so many ways. One of the things that has been asked of us is that we journal everyday - that is new for me, so it has been awesome for me. It has only been a few days - but I really like it! God has been showing us some really cool things and we look forward to sharing those with you over the next 8 weeks.

We miss you very much and although our days are full - we think of you often!

Our address while we are here is: Ron Millender, International Learning Center 16492 MLC Lane Rockville VA 23146 (care packages welcome :))

I leave you with a video of Faith's baptism - thanks to Faith Baptist for allowing Ron this amazing privilege.

We are here!

Quick post to say that we are here - thank you Tim and Ben! We got our "apartment" pretty much set up and organized. We will be posting pictures tomorrow - our quad mates are great! They have a son who is 9 and a daughter who is 6 - the kids are so excited to have built in playmates. Tomorrow we have a low key day doing a scavenger hunt to get acquainted with the "farm". Thanks for all of your prayers - pray that this will be a time of preparation for us physically, spiritually and emotionally for our family. We love you guys!! Thanks again to the Williams for all of your sacrifice these last 2 weeks!